1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an integrated management system and method for controlling multi-type air conditioners, and more particularly, to an integrated management system and method for controlling multi-type air conditioners capable of stably controlling an operation of at least one air conditioner group by backing up setting information used as criteria for controlling the operation of the at least one air conditioner group.
2. Background of the Invention
Air conditioner systems are now used in most buildings and homes. For example, one type of air conditioner system includes indoor units disposed in each room of a home or in each office in a building, and an outdoor unit shared by and connected to the indoor units.
An air conditioner group denotes a grouping of a plurality of air conditioners, and an air conditioner system denotes a system for managing at least one air conditioner group.
The air conditioner system may include a local controller which detects various operation states of the plurality of air conditioner groups and controls the plurality of air conditioner groups via a gateway according to the detection.
An integrated management system for controlling the multi-type air conditioners is being developed to integrally manage at least one air conditioner system from a remote location.
The integrated management system for controlling the multi-type air conditioners may collect operation state information related to the air conditioner system having the multi-type air conditioners and setting information related to the local controller for the multi-type air conditioners, so as to store and manage such information in a database. Thus, when the air conditioner system is not working properly, the integrated management system can automatically detect the malfunction or error and rapidly repair it.
Here, the local controller may include setting information related to indoor units and outdoor units and various types of setting information (e.g., scheduling information, malfunction history data, user information, etc.). Such setting information are considered to be very important and should be protected.
In the operation of the related art integrated management system for controlling the multi-type air conditioners, the setting information can be protected as a user directly backs up (or stores) the setting information in a storage unit, or the setting information is automatically backed up (or stored) in a storage unit of a local controller in a periodic manner using a backup software program.
Such setting information may be backed up automatically. However, when an error occurs in the setting information, the error in the setting information should be manually repaired by the user.
Furthermore, when changes do not occur in the setting information, the operation of backing up the setting information in the storage unit of the local controller undesirably increases the processing load of the local controller.